Friday, October 13, 2006

Hospital Productions Underworld

In the 'Show no mercy' column on Pitchfork, there's a description of Dominick Fernow's black metal music store in New York, 'Hospital Productions'. The description is wonderfully pertinent to one of my blog's concerns: black and blackened musics, black metal meets dub(-step), metallic satanism meets ras tafari christianity:

"The shop's located on 60 East 3rd Street, but even with the address in hand it's fairly difficult to spot: Hidden away in the basement of a reggae store, Jammyland Music, it's literally through a hole in the ground. Go to the back of Jammyland, walk carefully down a black ladder, find yourself in well-kept black and red fallout shelter decked with smashed microphones, a nailed guitar, plenty of framed flyers, sundry ephemera, and a packed Bloodyminded section".

Hospital Productions: an underworld which can only be reached by climbing down a rickety ladder through a hole in the ground, like a shaman climbing a ladder to the beyond...

The idea of a black metal store in the basement, i.e the subconscious, of a reggea store is so Freudian it is hard to believe that such a place actually exists. But, on the other hand, wouldn't it be more interesting to turn this Freudian hierarchy topsy-turvy and have some black metal with a dubreggae subconsious?